Recapturing an Era Paved With Silver

By PAUL LAROCCO

Published: August 29, 2004

THE rich silver manufacturing history of Meriden and Wallingford exists today only in remnants, in pieces in storage and in the stories from the ever-dwindling number of people who are familiar with its heyday.

''The sign on the highway when you used to drive into Meriden would say, 'Welcome to the Silver City of the World,''' said Bob Johnston, a 77-year-old former sales representative for the International Silver Company, one of the nation's largest silver manufacturers for most of the 20th century. ''Through the years though, by attrition, these places all dried up and really, there's very little in that area these days. It's just a shame.''

A small group of local historians agree and want to bring silver back to the forefront. Members of the Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust and silver enthusiasts hope to open a new American Silver Museum. They have already put a million dollars into an old home on Main Street in Wallingford.

''I just feel it's so important we maintain that history for our children,'' said Ellen Mandes, a member of the trust's board, and an avid collector who has donated hundreds of silver pieces and Victorian-era furniture for the museum's anticipated opening. ''So many people have no idea about some of the things that were made right here. They've never seen an ice cream fork, or a muddler, or anything like that.''

A muddler is a small spoon with a pointed end that was used for removing tea leaves, but Ms. Mandes said her active role in the silver museum project is not just to teach children about the obscure cutlery once produced in Central Connecticut. The larger motivation is to ensure that the sterling silverware and serving sets that once made their way to European royalty and other famed figures around the world return to their original home to stay.

In the late 1980's, Ms. Mandes was part of a group that raised nearly $4 million dollars to erect the Meriden American Silver Museum in the city's downtown. After opening to much hoopla in 1994, the museum lasted barely two years before folding because of a lack of money. A struggle then ensued in which collectors from Providence, R.I., attempted to get the museum's collection moved there for that city's own silver museum efforts. The threat of losing the collection seemed to boost everyone's resolve to find a new home that would last.

''When I first moved here,'' Ms. Mandes said, referring to her arrival in Wallingford from Washington D.C. in 1968, ''There was so much silver here. I had collected thousands of pieces already, but I hadn't seen anything like what was in this area. When they talked about taking the collection to Providence, there was no way at all we were going to allow that to happen.''

In 1999, after several years of searching for a suitable location, the Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust was given a grand, mid-18th-century Italianate home to relocate the museum, which they dubbed the Franklin & Harriet Johnson Mansion after its original owners. There was one problem, however. The house had been given several facelifts since its 1866 construction and had lost essentially all of its Victorian era charm.

''Whatever you could do to ruin a house, it was done,'' said John LeTourneau, a trust member who served as director of restoration for the Johnson Mansion. ''But it still had its basic integrity, which was important.''

Bolstered by a $500,000 grant from the State Department of Economic and Community Development in early 2002, work began in earnest on the home. With several hundred thousand dollars more in donations, the house was restored to its original state, with a period-appropriate staircase, moldings, a new cupola, and the trust's best guess of the home's original color: cream yellow and avocado green. But necessary work to make the home a state-approved museum site handicap accessibility, a state-of-the-art security system and modern electrical wiring drained the trust of its funds to finish the project on the fast-track timeline it had hoped.

Outside the home recently, a billboard used for an old fund-raiser rested against the wall. It showed a thermometer marked in dollars already raised, reading $800,000. The top of the glass bulb read $1.2 million, however. Inside, century-old, unfinished furniture rested unassembled on the floor. The walls were bare of any décor, and nicked and scuffed floors were coated with sawdust.

The home, even with a full, hand-carved 1847 Rogers Brothers tea set on display that morning, looked nowhere near ready for the public's eyes. But the trust president, Jerry Farrell Jr., said that he still hopes to hold some sort of grand opening this fall, although the museum is still well short of the $500,000 it estimates it needs for carpeting, wallpaper and a full exterior landscaping (the grounds are still dirt and gravel) appropriate to the period.

''If people came into this fully-built, fully-decorated place, with every piece of silver that ever existed already on display,'' Mr. Farrell said, ''they'd say, 'Why do you need our help?'''

A fellow trust member, Candice Brashears, said, ''The house here, in the state it's in now, provides people with a good community opportunity to engage in what we're doing.''

Ms. Mandes, asked later about the trust's financial situation, was more blunt.

''We desperately need money,'' she said.

One thing the trust has going for it, however, is a team of volunteers, led by Mr. Farrell, which has gathered from around the world thousands of pieces of silver produced in Meriden and Wallingford during its glory days. In addition, the group has located invaluable historical perspective from former area silver workers like Mr. Johnston, and the 83-year-old Bill Toth.

Mr. Toth, who entered the silver industry as an apprentice at R. Wallace & Sons Company in 1939, was one of the last employees of what became Wallace Silversmith Inc. (International Silver merged with Wallace in 1984, and worked as one company in Wallingford until Boston's Syratech Corporation purchased the company and moved operations in the early 1990's.) Even after the firm shut the company down locally, however, Mr. Toth continued working out of Wallingford as an analyst, before retiring a decade ago.

''For a while we were all worried where we were going to end up,'' Mr. Toth said. ''Everything was leaving.''

In his 54 years with Wallace, the Wallingford resident designed flatware patterns that became national bestsellers, watched his plant produce machine gun clips during World War II, and over all, watched his hometown go from the center of the silver world to an industrial ghost town.

Mr. Johnston recently sent the trust in Wallingford what he calls ''one of the larger silver libraries in the country'' more than 100 volumes of scholarly texts and auction catalogues.

''This is a project that excites me,'' said Mr. Johnston, who lives in Baltimore and is preparing for retirement from the private silver appraisal business he runs. ''I was on the board for the one in Meriden that closed, but these days, there are a lot of ways to promote a museum, and I think there will be a market.''

Photos: Details from an 1870's tea and coffee service that was made in Meriden. Left, the American Silver Museum in Wallingford. (Photographs by George Ruhe for The New York Times)